Australia should last the pace in next Ashes

Just as well that England hold the Ashes and will keep them in the event of a
shared Test series next summer. Because, on the first evidence of this
summer’s one-day tour by Australia, a result of 2-2 in 2013 is highly
possible.

This closing of the gap, since England won the last Ashes series 3-1 in Australia, is due to a cultural shift in Australian cricket. Their current batting looks vulnerable post-Ponting, as in 2010-11, but their pace bowling has suddenly become a completely different kettle, now their practitioners pitch the ball up.

Brett Lee, who spent his Test career banging it in halfway down, illustrated this cultural shift during the brief hour of play in Australia’s one-day international in Belfast. His first three balls were full-length and swung into Ireland’s left-handers, and cleaned up two of them. Lee might have started the game with a hat-trick but for a home-town decision.

Lee is now 35, and only a one-day bowler, but he has proved an old dog can learn new tricks: the trick of pitching the ball up and making it swing, whether the Australians are bowling on a damp deck in Belfast or a belter in Brisbane.

It was a trick that Australia’s pace bowlers forgot after Glenn McGrath’s retirement. Peter Siddle was a classic example during the last Ashes series, banging in short and macho, pretending to be the Enforcer, while James Anderson, Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan bowled a traditional length.

The man that Australia have to thank — and England to curse — for instilling this sense is Craig McDermott, who took 291 Test wickets at a virile fast-medium. He was Australia’s bowling coach for only a year, before resigning because he did not want to be away from his young family, but he was a good father to the fine crop of pace bowlers that Australia have lately unearthed.

Pat Cummins has only just turned 19 but already he is shaping as a formidable adversary in the 2013 Ashes, having taken seven wickets in his only Test, in South Africa. He took another wicket yesterday just before the rain, when his fullish length — varied by an occasional short ball to drive batsmen back — provoked a drive by Paul Stirling.

Stirling, only 21, is beefy enough to become the next Irishman to represent England, as a Twenty20 opening batsman and useful off-spinner. He threw his bat at Cummins and thick-edged to second slip, only there wasn’t one.

Instead, the captain Michael Clarke dived to his unnatural right side from first slip to clutch a one-handed ripper.

But even more of a threat to England next summer is James Pattinson, younger brother of Darren who played one Test for England in 2008. Cummins is not the finished article, naturally, and needs to get closer to the stumps in delivery. But Pattinson, 22, already has the ingredients to be Australia’s attack leader next summer.

Pattinson did not play on Saturday as Australia are rotating their six pace bowlers on this tour. But he has already spoken highly of what McDermott did for him, and his combination of a fullish length and swing-and-seam movement will not be what Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook want to face from Australia’s new-ball bowlers next year: they would much prefer the short-and-wide stuff of Siddle last time round or the young Lee.

“There was good swing out there,” Pattinson said, ominously, after playing last Thursday in the Australians’ tour opener at Leicester. “I thought they were getting through pretty well. It was my first bowl over here and I felt pretty relaxed and good. We put emphasis on hitting that full length in Australia this (last)

summer and it paid dividends with our success over there, and I think we’re going to do the same thing over here.” It is a recipe that has brought him 26 wickets in his five Tests at only 18 runs each.

Australia’s batting may be too weak to win the five-match one-day series against England starting on Friday: although they still top the one-day rankings, they have won eight and lost seven of their one-dayers this year because they have been unable to set formidable totals to chase. The next Ashes, after their cultural shift, will be another ball-game.